WEBVTT - Part Two: H.L. Hunt: The First Elon Musk 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:02.880 Cool Zone Media. 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:11.440 Oh, welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast about 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:15.560 the worst people in all of history. And this week 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:19.280 we are about to start part two of our episodes 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:24.239 on the former richest man in the world, H. L. Hunt. 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:27.159 And when we left him off, his dad and his 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:31.000 beloved older brother had just died. He had been saved 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:35.360 by a magical prostitute after proving supernaturally good at sex. 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:38.840 And he's in Arkansas starting a farm, you know, using 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:41.400 the money he'd inherited and the money he'd taken from 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:44.600 fleecing all of his friends at poker. He is going 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:54.600 to try to make something of himself. So by the 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:57.720 start of nineteen twelve, our boy, Haroldson Lafayette Hunt, had 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:01.600 opened his very own cotton plantation. Again, this is probably 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:04.040 inspired by the fact that his father had kind of 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:07.360 talked endlessly about how beautiful the South was and how 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:11.720 great cotton farming was. Unfortunately, he's going to learn a lesson, 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:17.039 which is that cotton farming sucks ass, and it's really 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:20.679 hard to like get rich doing unless you own a 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:22.720 bunch of people who you can make work for you 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:23.640 for free. 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:28.360 Right, History talking about lesson very. 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:31.679 Clearly, they're like, yes, yes, when you have to like 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:33.920 do your own work and pay people to help you 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:37.480 sucks way harder, way harder. And he's going to learn 0:01:37.480 --> 0:01:40.680 that over the next few years. Right. He's also going 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:44.160 to learn that the cotton market itself is incredibly volatile, right, 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:47.520 and so from year to year, your harvest might not 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:49.520 be worth what you put in to make it. And 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:52.640 also like bad weather can fuck you, you know, if you 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:54.680 don't have enough of a nest egg to survive it. Right, 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:58.800 It's just a very hard lifestyle. And this is where 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:02.040 the fact that he starts, he starts farming and immediately learns, 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:04.240 oh shit, it's really hard to make money cotton farming. 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:06.600 This is going to show evidence of one of his 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:08.960 most valuable traits, right, which is that he is not 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:11.520 dissuaded by failure. A couple of times in his life 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:14.160 he's gonna lose everything, like three different times he loses 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:17.239 everything and like makes it back, you know, to ultimately 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:20.160 get crazy rich. And if I were writing a linked 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:22.680 in post to appeal to a bunch of wannabe founders 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:25.600 and ceo boot liquors, itight in there, right, Hunt you know, 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:29.160 bankrupted himself three times and he you know, never let it. 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:31.240 Never never let it, you know, convince him to stop. 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:33.480 He never backed down. He just grut right back on 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:35.280 the horse and made the money up again. You know, 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:41.240 President right, right. It is true that like confidence in 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:43.760 the face of failure is important, you're certainly not going 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:46.240 to make it as an entrepreneur unless you can't. You 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:50.240 can handle some failure. But it's a separate characteristic of 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:52.560 Hunts that's going to contribute a lot more to his 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.200 future's success than the fact that he's fine with failure. 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:58.000 The thing that actually keeps him going through all these failures, 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:00.920 and particularly through the failure of his cotton business, is 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:04.640 that he also owns a casino. Right, that's all they 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:07.280 want to do with it. Then the attitude, I mean 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:09.400 casino is putting it a little far. It's not like 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:13.160 a full on Vegas casino. Obviously those don't exist yet. 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:17.080 But he owns a gambling din right. An article that 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:20.520 Anito Davis wrote for EBSCO notes that Hunt opens a 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:24.720 gambling parlor right alongside his cotton plantation. He starts them 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:27.560 both basically at the same time, and while the plantation 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:31.200 doesn't really work out financially, the gambling. Din is a 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:32.639 good investor, right. 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:36.480 It's like, you know what slavery does, suck, Let's get. 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:41.520 Gambling gambling though nothing problematic about that. Baby put it 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:46.440 all on red. So one constant of Hunt's early life 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:48.920 is that when he suffers a reverse and like loses 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:51.320 all of his money, he's able to It's weird because 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:53.000 before I learned this, I would just be like okay, 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:54.400 but he lost all his money. How does he a 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:56.640 year later have like eight thousand dollars to invest in 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:59.600 this new business. Well, it's because he keeps gambling, and 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:02.280 whenever he runs out of money, he just gambles until 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:05.000 he makes more money because he's like it's a superpower 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:07.320 for him. Like he just as far as I can tell, 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:09.880 anytime the man sits down at a table, he walks 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:13.320 away with money, right, And if you have that, it's 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:16.279 like fucking Lieutenant Commander Data, right, Like he's just gonna 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:20.359 win when he sits down to play cards. So every 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:23.120 time he goes bankrupt, he gets his money back because 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:26.840 he's like a gambling freak. Right. In nineteen fourteen, he 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:30.800 marries Lyda Bunker, and the newlyweds get to work, having 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:33.720 the first of what will ultimately be six children. Their 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:36.680 first child is a girl, Margaret. They have her in 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:39.880 nineteen fifteen, and two years later they have their first boy, 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:44.640 who he names Haroldson Lafayette Hunt. Technically he's the third right. 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:49.440 Lida calls him Hassie. She also calls her husband Hassie. 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:51.839 So it's kind of confusing in the book at this 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:54.560 point because you'll hear the tow Sill will refer to 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:56.960 both of them as Hassie. I'm only going to call 0:04:57.040 --> 0:04:59.560 his son Hassie. When I say Hassie, I'm talking about 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.640 our Harold Hunt, the future richest man, the world's kid. 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:07.239 Now he is going to cheat constantly on his wife. 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:10.000 He is cheating on Lida as early as nineteen seventeen, 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.479 probably earlier than that, but at least by that point, 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:17.520 and he is not subtle about it. So Lda has 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:20.760 to deal with hearing endlessly about like, oh, your husband 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:24.760 sure has an eye for the ladies, huh, which she 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:29.600 does not like, does not make her feel good. His 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.240 tell is like the way that she can tell he's 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:34.160 cheating on her is he'll point out a lady in 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:35.800 town to be like, you know, she's a really good 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:39.880 person and that means lighta is like, okay, so he's 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:42.520 sucking her or he's going to try to fuck her. Right, 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:44.520 sometimes it just means that he's at the house or 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:46.719 somebody right right right. 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:49.800 It really shines through you know, what a. 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:53.520 Great personality she's got me just like casually bringing it 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:58.440 up to your wife and yeah, it's one of those 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:01.720 things where like she's never're okay with it. She kind of, 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:03.680 I think accepts it just because the world is the 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:06.080 way it is. She doesn't have any there's nothing she 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:08.040 can not much she can do about it, right, but 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:11.159 it makes her sad. And also his kids can tell 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:14.440 that he's cheating on their mom and they don't like it. 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:16.800 Like his first two kids especially are going to really 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:19.160 hate him for the fact that he is just he 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:23.240 makes their mother miserable. He treats her so badly. I 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:26.520 really I cannot exaggerate what a bad husband he is. 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:30.200 Hunt suffers ups and downs over the first three years 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:33.680 he spends farming, but World War done, World War one 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:38.680 finally does. His cotton plantation in the cotton market collapses 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:41.720 kind of not long after the outbreak of war, and 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:45.000 then in nineteen seventeen, his farm gets flooded out, and 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:47.719 just kind of the mix of these two factors together, 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:50.080 he can't keep it going anymore. He has to give 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:54.320 up somehow. He goes from this from his you know, 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:57.680 going bankrupt and his farm failing in nineteen seventeen to 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:00.640 investing in his first oil well in nineteen twenty one. 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:03.960 And there's a little bit of mystery as to how 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:07.919 he gets his first oil well. Here's how that pro 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:12.080 oil and gas industry website Oklahoma Minerals describes this part 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:14.560 of his career. So this is like the this is 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:17.440 like the this is the approved propaganda line that Hunt 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:20.520 wanted people to believe. With a borrowed fifty dollars, he 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:23.440 began trading oil leases, employing a strategy of buying and 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:27.720 selling that almost simultaneously to profit without significant capital investment. 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:30.520 This approach allowed him to amass considerable wealth in a 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:34.800 short period. Right, So basically he's just doing the kind 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:36.880 of trading people do on computers now, but with his 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:39.640 super smart brain, and he doesn't need much money. It's 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:41.920 just a borrowed fifty dollars, you know. He's able to 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:44.480 turn that gradually into enough of a fortune to start 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:49.000 buying his own oil fields. That's not quite accurate. That is, like, 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:51.680 it accurately describes one of his strategies, which is that 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:54.760 once he gets going, after he has this first successful 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:57.720 oil field, he'll start buying and selling leases. And he 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:00.040 is doing this thing where he's like doing it in 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:01.680 such a way that he doesn't have to actually put 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:05.560 much money down, right, because he's just kind of switching 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:07.760 shuffling assets around. It's a little bit of like a 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:11.119 show game type deal. But this does leave out something 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:15.080 important about how he got his first oil well, and 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:17.280 to describe that, I'm going to go back to his 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:21.360 FBI report. From the FBI quote, he was reportedly a 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:24.080 professional gambler who won an oil lease in a card 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:27.640 game and is alleged to have operated prostitution activities in Arkansas. 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:31.720 So this is something you'll find first off, it's not 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:34.880 just a gambling den. He's also a pimp, right. That's 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:37.680 especially I think that he gets more into that as 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:41.520 the farm fails. He's like, well, crime will make money 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:44.640 for me, And he uses the proceeds of both gambling 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:48.520 and prostitution in order to make the money that he 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:51.440 invests in oil fields. And it's very possible. We don't 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:54.480 know entirely. If it's that he literally won his first 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:57.240 oil field in a card game, that was a rumor 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:00.600 and it seems very possible. But if he didn't win 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:02.520 his first oil field in a card game, then he 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:05.960 bought it with the proceeds from crime right, And I 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:09.439 think it's probably true. He probably won his first oil 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:12.960 field in a card game and then invested in other 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:15.920 leases and got into the trading leases game with money 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:18.480 he made from crime right. I think it's probably a 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:21.320 mix of those. But this guy has to become a 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:25.080 criminal to get rich, right, That's not emphasized enough in 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:28.960 the hagiographies of him. But like he's he's a he's 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:29.760 a pimp, you know. 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:33.440 So he's gonna do all of this and then end 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:34.840 up becoming like a. 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:40.400 Far right, super right, super right wing out the hypocrisy's 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:44.520 religious right guy. Initially, Yeah, he's it's very much a 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:50.560 hypocrisy thing. But like all these guys, Yeah, anyone whose 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:54.400 whole thing is like attacking and wanting to like harm people, 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:57.600 using the state for violations of a moral code is 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:00.880 always in violation of the moral code. They are trying 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:02.840 to push on other people. One way, or the other. 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:06.839 When you dig enough, you find it out right, that's 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:10.240 just as far as I am convinced a pretty universal 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:13.920 truth with these these kinds of assholes. I found an 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:16.720 article from the Nation from nineteen sixty four. The author 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:20.079 of that article claims the explanation that he gambled to 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:22.320 get his first oil field got into print for the 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:24.840 first time in nineteen fifty in a British newspaper, but 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:28.960 it has been repeated many times since. Hunt denies it all, 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:31.280 And I don't know what the truth is here. Whatever 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:34.560 the truth, Hunt is going to continue operating gambling establishments 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:37.360 for the next couple decades. He makes a fortune on 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:39.720 the Arkansas oil boom and is said to have been 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:42.959 worth six hundred thousand dollars by the time he's twenty five, 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:46.200 which you know, by the standards, like if you turn 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:48.800 that into modern money, he's a multimillionaire pretty much by 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:51.200 the time he's in his mid twenties. Now, he's going 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:53.240 to lose all of that money not long after this 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:56.160 bill make even more back. Right, He's not what you'd 0:10:56.200 --> 0:11:00.000 call a good father at any point in time, especially 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:00.760 in this period. 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:02.240 I can imagine all that cheating. 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:06.400 Yeah, all the cheating. He gambles constantly instead of he 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:08.679 doesn't like spend time raising his kids. Like when he 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:11.000 has free time when he's not working on the farm, 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:15.280 he's gambling, right. And then when he eventually he's gambling 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:19.280 or he's speculating on leases oil field leases. Right, but 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:22.120 he never he never just has downtime with the kids. 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:25.800 He's always gambling. Right. During the early years before he 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:29.359 leaves Arkansas to pursue oil fields in Louisiana and then Texas, 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:32.200 his kids tell regular stories of him just being gone 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:34.200 all the time and like mom need to find someone 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:36.160 to watch them when she had to do something because 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:39.880 he's playing poker, right, And she hates him gambling. She 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:41.800 thinks that him gambling is the root of all of 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:45.400 their problems. Now, to be fair, she's not right, Like 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:48.720 she blames him gambling on them going bankrupt like two 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:50.959 or three times, and he goes bankrupt because of the 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:54.200 legitimate businesses, like first because of his farm, and then 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:56.440 I think like a couple of times as he's not 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:59.160 quite bankrupt, but he loses a lot of money on 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:03.920 like oilp gambling is a really reliable way for them 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:06.920 to make money or at least, I should say. The 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:10.040 card gambling is not what is bad for their finances. 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:13.199 His gambling on oil speculation fucks them over a couple 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:14.360 of times, right. 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:16.680 But his ego is fed by the gambling. And that's 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:18.960 the thing too, It's like that makes them reinforce it. 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:21.319 He's the most special and what makes it feel like, Yeah, 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:23.040 I can go out and sleep with whoever I want 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:23.920 to do whatever because I. 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:25.200 Can just exactly. 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:26.600 The rule. 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:32.000 Yeah pockets. Yeah, So he takes all of his money. 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:33.800 There's a couple of occasions where he'll just like take 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:35.720 all of the money and like leave his wife with 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:39.600 the kids nearly destitute for like a year, and just 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:42.720 go down to another state to speculate on oil fields. 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:45.160 So she does like, the kids don't like. This is 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:46.720 a scary time for the kids. They don't know if 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:49.480 he's ever coming back, and neither does she, right, and 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:51.480 he doesn't like I don't think he makes it clear 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:53.440 that he's coming back. I think he's like, I'm gonna 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:55.440 go see what I if I can make a fortune. 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:58.080 And he's kind of like, and if I die out 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:00.600 there or whatever and leave you guys destitute, well that's 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:01.400 how it goes. 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:02.920 You know, I've been doing this since I was twelve 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:04.640 years old. Guys, don't worry about. 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:06.760 Right, And like the time, by the time, he's worth 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:08.840 six hundred grand at twenty five, he could have like 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:11.800 retired and put all of that into you know, a 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:16.000 couple of safe investments or just you know, like fucking 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:21.120 bonds or whatever, and lived and supported his family comfortably 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:23.280 for the rest of their lives and like been a father. 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:26.319 He chooses to then gamble all of that money again 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:29.120 and leave his family. He does not need to. He 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:31.720 has a point where he's like, you could choose to 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:34.320 be a father and raise your kids and you would 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:36.920 all be wealthy for the rest of your lives. And 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:39.480 he takes all of that money and puts it all 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:42.079 on black and loses it and is gone for like 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:44.480 another year or so to make it back, right, Right, 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:46.880 So this is not good for his. 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:49.320 Family, and I'm sure he in the back of his money, 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:53.240 he's like, listen, I'm not bothering you guys. I'm not 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:56.640 harassing you about how much breast milk you guys are getting. 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:58.040 So why should he be upset? 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:01.840 Yeah, I'm giving you nobody wants their dad around. It 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:09.160 sucks da and yeah, like his wife blames all of 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:11.960 this again on like the poker, but he is she 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:15.400 is right that like his gambling is what's destroying the family. 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:19.520 It's just his gambling on oil wells is what's destroying 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:22.280 the family. Because he again, they go bankrupt a second 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:24.480 time in the twenties because of all this for the 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:27.080 book Kingdom, he gave no thought in the world to 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:30.560 security for his family. Right, that is accurate, And that's 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:34.000 also how his wife and his first couple of kids 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:36.920 see him. Right, is he does not give a fuck 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:40.200 about us. He is willing to gamble all like our 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:45.520 happiness and our survival entirely because it thrills him. When 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:48.720 his oldest son hassee turns eight, it's become a parent 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:54.080 that he has inherited his father's intellect. Hassie is incredibly bright. Unfortunately, 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:56.720 he's also the one who's most hurt by his father's 0:14:56.720 --> 0:15:00.840 complete neglect to scene rights. Hassie felt personal rejected by 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:03.040 this strange man who entered his life only now and 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:06.080 then without warning. This man had named him after himself, 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:09.160 had given him his looks and quick intelligence, then apparently 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:11.920 decided his son was not quite up to snuff right, 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:16.600 So that's very much how Hassee sees what his dad 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:20.160 is doing is like he named me after himself. He 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:22.080 clearly wanted me to be his heir, and then I 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:24.640 must have failed him because he wants nothing to do 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:24.880 with me. 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:29.920 Ah, that's so sad. It's like he's he's just repeating 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:32.480 the exact same cycles of harm and like I'd like 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:36.000 psychologically it's interesting, but just as like a human being, 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:38.040 like you're a dick. Stop being a dick. 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:41.600 Yeah, don't stop. Don't do that to your kids again. 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:44.680 If you I kind of think if you wind up 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:46.880 getting lucky enough that you have like a windfall that 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:49.680 allows you to never work again and support your kids forever, 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:51.720 you kind of have a responsibility to like be a 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:55.120 really involved parent at that point and maybe stop gambling incessantly. 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:58.160 You know, you could start a business and like you know, 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:01.840 or you have some small investments, but that's the point 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:04.440 at which you should make your family a priority. 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:04.760 Again. 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:07.560 You've succeeded, you know, you don't need to keep doing this. 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:09.880 You have to choose a struggle like either be broken 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:12.760 present or be rich and nice, Like you can't be 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:17.280 both mean and then not present and then always messing. 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:21.480 With Buddy, like a big struggle. In nineteen twenty five, 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.040 he abandons his family yet again to speculate on oil 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:26.400 fields in Florida while he's down and want to I 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:29.600 want to specify it. That's Florida, the state, not flow Rda, 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:33.080 the musical sensation. Always there's confusion every week I talk 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:33.680 about those. 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:35.440 It's important to get these things right. 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:37.960 A lot of people know flow Rida but don't know 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:40.000 that there's a state that's named after him. I just 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:43.960 want to make that clear. So while he's down in Florida, 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:47.120 he meets a waitress, Franni a Tie, who helps him 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:49.520 find a plot of land to gamble on near Tampa. 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:51.840 It's like he thinks there might be oil, and I 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.520 think it winds up being there, winds up being oil there. 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.120 But he spends months down in Tampa, you know, searching 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:02.200 for more deals, working on that deal, and hanging out 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:06.639 a lot with Frannia Tie. With this waitress, right, she's 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:09.600 a wanna be musician. She's like a singer, And so 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:13.600 he gets really into writing musicals. He convinces himself that 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:17.400 like he's a great writer, and in fact that like, oh, 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:20.520 all these other writers all these professional writers are idiots, Like, 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:22.720 I bet because I'm so smart, I could be the 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:25.840 best playwright ever if I just devoted some time to it. 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:28.840 So he like becomes convinced he's going to be like 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:31.840 the biggest thing on Broadway. He like goes to a 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:34.720 show on Broadway once around this period of time, and 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:36.840 he's like, I'm going to make the best musical that's 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:37.600 ever been made. 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:40.280 Has he ever been to New York Like he's. 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:42.200 Been once, Yeah, he's been once. He saw he sees 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:44.760 a show on Broadway. That's what convinces him he's going 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:47.040 to be the greatest musician or the greatest playwright of 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:49.920 all time. And so for a while he gets really 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:52.160 into that, and he like writes a bunch of songs 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:56.199 that sounded terrible, and they're primarily songs for Frannia, right, 0:17:56.280 --> 0:18:00.159 because he's in love with her at this point. He 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:03.960 marries her on Armises Day nineteen twenty five. Now, but 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:08.440 you may note he never divorced his first wife, nor 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:10.800 did he break up with her, nor did he tell 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:14.000 her that he was done. Frannia, by the way, does 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:16.879 not know she's that he's cheating. She has no idea 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:19.080 he has another wife. He does not tell her he 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:22.720 has a wife and multiple children. He's lying to her too, 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:26.040 She's not does not bear any responsibility here. She thinks 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:28.520 she's met a guy and fall in love with him, 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:31.399 and he marries her and they start having kids together. 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:34.080 He buys her a house, and he just starts raising 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:38.639 a second secret family in Florida will ultimately have four 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:40.679 children Jamaican. 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:43.480 I can say that. I'm sure. 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:46.800 A lot of people do that. 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:50.119 I know, but it's just like one one neglective family. 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:53.720 One neglected family's not enough. Let's you have two two. 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:57.000 I can't really double down on my family neglect. Look, 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:01.159 two neglected families makes a non neglected family. That's the 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:04.639 way it works, right, If you neglect enough families, it 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:06.840 loops around to you being a caring father. 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:09.640 Oh, just like a numbers game. It's like his gambling. 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:12.920 Someone's gonna have to like me. 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:15.879 Right right, I'm going to eventually find a family I 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:18.720 actually want to be there for. You know, Statistically, he's 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:22.160 like gambling, Just keep getting, keep getting new cards, keep dealing. 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:25.320 Wait, So, just to clarify, how many children does he 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:26.560 have with the first wife. 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:29.879 Ultimately he's going to have like fifteen, he has six 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:32.440 I think with his first wife and four with Franny. 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:34.159 I Ultimately, over the course of his life he has 0:19:34.200 --> 0:19:35.040 like fifteen kids. 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:36.359 It's too many. 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:40.920 Ew And again this is bigamy. He's bigamously married. Now 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:43.160 this is a crime. You're not allowed to do this 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:46.600 in nineteen thirty because he also lied to the government 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:49.600 right about not being previously married. In nineteen thirty, he 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:52.200 takes his money and he moves to East Texas, where 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:54.760 he meets a fellow named see him Joiner. So now 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:57.359 he has abandoned both of his families. He meets a 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:01.920 man named see him Joiner. He's another oil speculator. Not sorry, 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:03.919 not a speculator. Joiner is one of these guys I 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:05.920 forget the term for it, but he's like he's like 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:10.679 a prospector for oil wells. Right. So Joiner identifies some 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:14.280 land that's like, I think there's oil on this land. 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:16.560 This is like I think a lot of it, right, 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:20.240